Cat Scratches
by RavenTempestShadowhunter
Summary: She told him they were cat scratches. And even though he knew she was lying, he left her alone, because it was none of his business, and she wouldn't do it again. Right? High school AU, Thalico friendship, rated for self harm, alcohol, drugs, depressing themes.


**For my friend, who inspired this story.**

**Cat Scratches**

She told him they were cat scratches.

He raised an eyebrow and told her it must have been a very smart cat, because he'd never met a cat who could spell, but she just smiled and went back to her homework.

He pretended not to see the bags under her eyes that she'd so expertly covered with concealer, or the way he smile wasn't nearly as sincere as it had been years ago, when he'd been the new Italian kid who didn't speak English and she'd been the only one who would talk to him. And he tried to remember when the last time he'd seen her real smile, and found that he couldn't, and wondered when he'd gotten so wrapped up in his own life that he couldn't pay attention to his best friend.

But it was the first time, he told himself. And she wouldn't be stupid enough to do it again. He would tell someone if he noticed it anymore.

In the back of his mind he knew she would do it again, but he fought off the thought as the bell rang.

* * *

She didn't stop, as she knew she wouldn't. But it didn't hit him until Annabeth asked her about the marks on her arms.

"Cat scratches," she said with the smile that no one but he could see through.

Annabeth laughed, and he wanted to strangle her. "You've got a mean cat."

She laughed with her friend, but didn't answer.

He wanted to scream at her. Why was she lying? Why didn't she tell him? Why didn't she tell Annabeth?

But he brushed it off, because it was none of his damn business, and if she wanted to throw her life away like this, it was her own choice.

* * *

She started wearing long sleeves, and it made him feel sick, to know that if he peeled away that layer of fabric, just one thin layer of fabric, he'd be able to see what she was hiding from the rest of the world. He didn't know why she hid it. She'd stared him in the eye and lied to him, but she was scared to let the rest of the world see? Annabeth had believed her. Unless Annabeth was as good a pretender as he was.

In the middle of the summer, a few months after the first encounter with the cat scratches, they went swimming together. When she pulled off her shirt his eyes were drawn to her forearms, but he could only see faint lines, where before they'd been bold and red. The lines had faded to nothingness by the time they went back to school, and he told himself that she was better, that he had his best friend back.

He refused to think about the fact that that had been the first time she'd worn a bathing suit that covered her torso.

* * *

By Christmas, she'd lost weight. Her sweaters hung off her frame like rags, and even her tightest shirts were loose. Her hands trembled. She wouldn't eat with him anymore. At lunch she insisted that she had to go to the library, or she needed to talk to a teacher. When he implored her to sit with him, she just gave him that hollow smile that he'd come to expect.

She dyed her hair, ridiculous colors that he'd never thought she'd consider, but his favorite was the blue. Deep, royal blue, with jet black underneath it. With her scarecrow figure and hollow cheeks, she looked like a dead girl.

She often didn't bother with her mascara and eyeliner anymore, as if it didn't matter, but he could always tell that she was wearing concealer to cover the dark circles under her eyes.

Finally, in the middle of January, he convinced her to come over and eat an entire tuna sandwich. He called it a victory and pretended that he didn't hear the retching from his upstairs bathroom.

* * *

She'd started dating in eighth grade, and by the time they were nearing the end of their junior year, she'd had seven boyfriends. They got steadily worse, but she seemed happy when she was with them, so he tried to be supportive.

She started coming to school with dilated pupils and a ridiculous smile on her face. He knew he should have said something, but it was the first time in what seemed like forever that he'd seen her smiling an honest-to-God smile, and not something fake that fooled almost everything but not him, so he smiled with her and helped her when she fell.

Her boyfriend at the time was a senior, so she was invited to prom. He stayed home and watched the superhero movies that they both loved and wondered how much fun she was having.

He found out exactly how much fun she was having when she showed up on his doorstep at one in the morning when he was finishing the second Iron Man. Her dress was torn and dirty, her mascara was running down her face, and she could barely stand, leaning against the door for support. There was a purplish bruise blossoming across her left cheek.

He helped her to the couch and sang softly in Italian until she fell asleep.

He sat up the entire night trying to think of what to say to her. She was digging herself a hole that was almost too deep to get out of. She needed to get a new boyfriend, to take care of herself, to talk to someone. She needed help.

But when morning came and she woke up with a splitting headache, he got her a glass of water and some aspirin, and made her a simple breakfast of eggs, and said nothing, because he didn't know how to say it.

* * *

He found her in the middle of the summer before their senior year. The birds were chirping and the sun was shining and he went to her house to see if she would go to get ice cream with him.

She was lying on the tiled floor of the bathroom, her face whiter than it had ever been, and a beam of sunlight shining on her.

He screamed and cried and shook her. He clutched her to his chest, sobbing into her hair, _sorry, sorry, sorry_. Behind his closed eyes he watched the two of them walking down the street, hand in hand, laughing. He saw summer nights on the beach at Montauk with Percy and Annabeth, when he would take out the guitar he played only a few times a year and they would sing together, and the rest of the world would fall away, leaving only them and the music and the crashing waves on the sand.

He saw bonfires and marshmallows and tents and secrets whispered into ears and lost to the wind. He saw the town that was as close to a city as they ever got, with its little diner where they would go for lunch, and the candy shop and the music store where she could spend hours. He saw early morning movies and stolen snacks and giggles, trying not to wake their parents up.

And then he opened his eyes, and the world became red and blue lights, sirens, metal, and the sound of a man's voice saying what he already knew but didn't want to admit. He felt his father's arms around his waist, holding him back, telling him that there was nothing he could do. His body shook with sobs and he buried his face in his father's chest, not wanting to look.

He didn't know what made him angrier – the fact that she'd lied, the fact that they'd believed her, or the fact that he was the only one who knew that she didn't have a cat.


End file.
